There’s only one space left on the board. Please be a four, please be a four, I think to myself. It’s a two. Game over.
But that doesn’t stop me as I click “try again,” put my determined face back on, fall into my zen mode (it causes me not to hear, see or notice anything) and continue on my quest to match my way to the prestigious 2048 tile.
It all started about a week ago when I saw a few of my friends playing the game. When I asked about the objective, my friends explained that players had to add the numbers and try to get the 2048 tile.
I was baffled! Firstly, I had no idea what the “2048” tile, and more importantly, my friends were spending time huddled over their phones, doing math — for fun. There had to be a reason this game was becoming the new “addictive game of the month.” So, I decided to find out what all the fuss was about.
A few days later, I sat down in front of a computer, bracing myself for minutes of concentration and strategic thinking. I then assumed the game playing position: squinted eyes, determined face and fingers over arrow keys. Because I was so ready to discover the mysteriously entertaining quality of this game, I neglected to read the instructions and started clicking the arrow keys at random, thinking I could understand the game easily.
It’s safe to say I had no idea what I was doing.
I kept clicking the arrow keys even though I knew wasn’t playing the game correctly because every few seconds a tile would have a bigger number on it. But when I tried to add two different numbers together I kept muttering something along the lines of, “this game is obviously broken.”
As one of my friends walked by and saw my blank expression, she snickered and pointed at the bottom of the web page to the instructions. Immediately my eyes widened and a long “Oh” followed. I was supposed to move the tiles and match the numbers until I reached the tile with the number 2048.
I then restarted the game with a clear goal in my head: to obtain the 2048. I was so excited I ran to my friend, proudly announced I understood 2048 and ran back to finish the game without letting her reply.
Finally, I understood why this game was so addicting. It was oddly fun to see the numbers merge into one and get progressively bigger as I got closer and closer to reaching the 2048 tile. It also made me feel like a math whiz (go math!).
By the end of the day I had downloaded the app onto my phone and was developing strategies to get a new high score as well as reaching the 2048 tile.
I even introduced this miraculous game to a few of my friends and got them hooked to it as well. We may or may not have played the game on each other’s phones for 20 minutes straight.
I promise, I am not insane. It’s just a good game, OK?